Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of consulting with young people on cross-government decision-making processes.

This Government recognises the value of effective youth participation in decision making at all levels. We understand this leads to impactful policy locally, regionally and nationally.

Youth consultation opportunities are taking place across government:

• As announced in the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education have established a Youth Guarantee Advisory Panel to help shape the design and development of the Youth Guarantee.

• The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government recently convened two roundtables with young people to inform work on their long term strategy for communities.

• Young people have been invited to participate in an online debate run by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help inform the revision of the Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan.

The DCMS-led new National Youth Strategy will be co-produced with young people. We have already conducted Ministerial roundtables with young people and over the coming months will conduct a number of different youth engagement activities. We have set up a Youth Advisory Group to work alongside us throughout the development of the Strategy, and will shortly launch a national survey to ask young people about their issues and priorities.

The Secretary of State has written to all MPs to encourage them to engage with young people in their constituencies in support of the Strategy. This included an engagement toolkit so MPs can run their own workshops and discussions with young people, or encourage organisations in their constituencies who work with young people to do the same.